So heres the situation i am currently losing about 2 volt shortly after turning car off. While car is running it has around 13.5 14 volts as soon i shut down volt meter reads 12.6 1/2 hour later down to 10.4 with key just in on position 9.6 any idea ehat could be causingthis and how to test ur input is grealty appreciated thank you in advance
Use a 12v multimeter.
Disconnect the negative cable from the battery.
Hook one lead of the multimeter to the negative battery terminal, and the other lead to the negative cable.
Check voltage, this should show you the amount of ‘draw’ your car is pulling from the battery.
I can’t rmemeber the exact spec to aim for… but once you do this you can pull fuses and watch the volt meter. If you pull a fuse and the draw lowers significantly, you’ve found your problem area.
For instance if you pulled the Stereo fuse and your voltage drops, you know something in the stereo circuit is drawing power with the car off.
Someone had this issue a month or so ago, they explained it a bit better.
Ok so I disconnected the negative terminal and put my meter between the post and the cable and started pulling fuses the voltage didn drop until I pulled all the fuses out of the bay and the kick panel and the voltage reappered After I plugged in the back up fuse under the hood and the cigarette lighter fuse back I. The kick panel still can figure out what it could be any help is greatly appreciated in advance
Ok so battery still lose volts over night plus high beams arent woeking if theres anyone out there that can help i would greatly appreciate it
first thing you want to do so you don’t damage your meter, is test for a direct short to ground.
to do this, disconnect the neg and pos terminals on the battery. take your meter and set it to read ohms. place one lead on the pos terminal of the battery cable and one on the neg cable terminal. this measures the resistance of the entire vehicle. there should be some. maybe 100-200ohms. if you get 0ohms resistance, you have a dead short to ground. if there is resistance, move onto the amp draw test
reconnect only the neg terminal to the battery. make sure all doors are closed and all lights are off. you may have to wait 10-20 minutes for all loads to go into “sleep mode”.
set your meter to read amps. start with the 10 amp range setting. place one lead on the battery anode(pos battery terminal) and one lead on the pos cable. make sure not to touch anything else with those leads!! a typical amp draw will be roughly 50milliamps or .05a. because you’re ranged to the 10amp setting, you should read 0amps. if you do, switch the range setting to read milliamps. if you get a higher reading than 50milliamps, start pulling fuses until you find which circuit drops it down to an acceptable level.
you should probably charge up the battery prior to testing if it isn’t charged already
Thanks for the help i will test this when i get some extra time another question is there suppossed to be continuity between positive terminal and ground
if you place one lead on the pos terminal and one on the chassis, there should be some resistance, as you’re measuring continuity between the battery and the entire vehicle. even the starter motor cable alone will have some resistance. not much, but some. so the entire vehicle will have a fair bit of resistance. should be 1-200ohms
so no, you shouldn’t have continuity between the positive cable and ground. if you do, you actually have a dead short. what did you read when you tested it? how many ohms?
When i tryied the ohm test it would go to like 194 for a secon and then drop to 1 wouod go back up everytime i removed and touched the terminal is it suppossed to have a steady reading
you have to give it a second for the reading to settle. sometimes it’ll throw out a few random numbers before you get the correct reading.
exactly what range setting do you have it on?
- As soon as i touched both terminals it would show a few differn. Numbers but when i held it
On there it stays at 1
Ok changed the setring to 20k and now its actually showing a reading of 9.96
so this is battery cables disconnected, one lead on each cable terminal, yes?
no, that’s ranged to read kiloohms. you want to range it to just 20 ohms setting
Yes battery cables are disconected and 1 lead on each cable
My meter has 2000k 200k 20k 2000 and 200 when i set it on 200 it only show i quick reading and then goes back to 1
k somethings not right here. cuz you’re reading 10000ohms resistance.
which sockets are the leads plugged into on your multimeter?
The blacks in the com and the reds in v ohm ma. Im gonna try my fluke meter tomarrow i un plugged my radio last night cause i was hearing like whistle through the speakers and when i checked the voltage this morning it waz At like 12.5 im gonna check it again in the morning i really appreciate your help and will get back to u tomarrow with results
hmmm. strange.
k try this. touch the two leads together. make sure your hands aren’t touching the metal prongs.
you should get a reading of 0, or continuity
Welfare checked the battery this morning and it had 12.30 volt turn the key to on and dropped and cranked slow still
ok. so the problem isn’t a parasitic drain then since the batt read 12.3v. without cranking and the key on, what did the voltage drop to?